UFC Free Fight: Dustin Poirier Goes To War With Justin Gaethje

Ahead of his main-event fight with the Notorious Conor McGregor, the UFC have uploaded one of Dustin Poirier’s highlight bouts against Justin Gaethje for free to their YouTube channel. After taking his first career loss to Eddie Alvarez in just his second UFC fight, Justin Gaethje was looking to get back into the win column […]

Ahead of his main-event fight with the Notorious Conor McGregor, the UFC have uploaded one of Dustin Poirier’s highlight bouts against Justin Gaethje for free to their YouTube channel.

After taking his first career loss to Eddie Alvarez in just his second UFC fight, Justin Gaethje was looking to get back into the win column against the veteran Dustin Poirier in the main event at UFC on Fox 29.

In this bout, the pair both put on an incredible showcase of endurance, durability, and skill that ultimately ended with Poirier finding the finishing blows and getting his hand raised in the fourth round.

You can check out all the action from this main event at the link above.

Justin Gaethje Admits He’s Concerned About Taking Too Much Damage

UFC lightweight Justin Gaethje has a fan-friendly style that has undoubtedly won him many a fight fan. He battled it out with Michael Johnson in his UFC debut last July, ultimately winning the war of attrition by second-round TKO. His next two outings didn’t go his way, however, and he ended up losing via T/KO […]

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UFC lightweight Justin Gaethje has a fan-friendly style that has undoubtedly won him many a fight fan.

He battled it out with Michael Johnson in his UFC debut last July, ultimately winning the war of attrition by second-round TKO.

His next two outings didn’t go his way, however, and he ended up losing via T/KO to Eddie Alvarez and then Dustin Poirier.

Now, Gaethje admitted he is at least somewhat concerned over the consequences of his risky fighting style while on The MMA Hour this week (via MMA Fighting):

“I’m just telling myself that now because, for one, this is a young man’s game.”

“Three hard fights in a row, all in the last 12 months, people have said to me that it’s something to worry about. There are guys in the UFC now that have been knocked unconscious seven times, five times, completely unconscious. I have never gone completely unconscious yet. I have passed every single one of my impact tests after the fights.

“Of course it’s a concern, but that’s what we do. We fight for a living. If you watched the Edson (Barboza) and Kevin Lee fight, they took punches. Kevin Lee won but he took that huge spinning head kick and that’s not good for your brain, but it is what we do.

“I can’t go to bed every night scared or worried because this is what I signed up for. This is what I get paid to do. I try to fight twice a year so I don’t add up (the damage) too fast.”

The former WSOF lightweight champion was thrown to the wolves right out of the gate, but his losses were competitive until the finish. With CTE at the forefront of discussion when it comes to sports, Gaethje is certainly testing dangerous boundaries of what kind of punishment a human brain can take.

While he’s right he hasn’t been completely knocked out yet, he has instead been accumulating sustained punches to the head for a prolonged period of time.

Do you feel Gaethje’s fighting style is detrimental to his health? how much longer can he last in the UFC fighting his style?

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Justin Gaethje Finally Plans On Switching Up Style In Next Fight

Justin Gaethje’s fighting style has endeared him to fans worldwide. His aggressive, non-stop, power-punching action with zero regards for defense has made him a UFC star and headliner in just three fights in the promotion. However, after his last loss to Dustin Poirier, who defeated Gaethje by TKO in a thrilling affair at April 14’s […]

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Justin Gaethje’s fighting style has endeared him to fans worldwide.

His aggressive, non-stop, power-punching action with zero regards for defense has made him a UFC star and headliner in just three fights in the promotion.

However, after his last loss to Dustin Poirier, who defeated Gaethje by TKO in a thrilling affair at April 14’s UFC on FOX 29, many fighters and fans began questioning the longevity and safety of a fighter like him. And what’s more is that he’s an NCAA All-American wrestler despite rarely if ever using his supposedly elite mat skills in mixed martial arts.

Finally, Gaethje appears to have listened to those sentiments, and plans on implementing more wrestling into his game plans moving forward (via MMA Fighting):

“I’ve been wrestling my whole life. I should’ve and could’ve took him down a couple of times, especially when I had him rocked just to steal a round or two. For some reason, my mind will not let me do it,”

“I think I sold myself so hard on the fact that this is not wrestling. I don’t know, I honestly don’t know the answer to that question,” he replied when asked why wrestling didn’t prominently feature in his fighting arsenal.

“It gets you tired. If I’m going to get tired, I’d rather it be from fighting and not from wrestling. That’s the reason why I never wanted to wrestle. But I did so much cardio this camp that it would not have been a problem for me to turn it into a wrestling match, but I just can’t do it, it would not be fun for me.”

Gaethje blasted onto the UFC scene with an amazing back-and-forth war against Michael “The Menace” Johnson at last year’s TUF 26 Finale, which Gaethje won by TKO. Trouble began to emerge in his next outing, however, when he faced former divisional champion Eddie Alvarez, who put Gaethje’s lights out with a knee.

It was the first time Gaethje had ever lost a professional MMA fight, and it perhaps offered the blueprint on how to defeat the bulldozing slugger.

Then the Poirier fight didn’t help his case for such a reckless style, so maybe we will see Gaethje going for a double leg in the octagon soon of instead of blocking punches with his face.

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Kevin Lee: Dustin Poirier Would Just Get Taken Down By Khabib

Heading into his main event bout with Edson Barboza this Saturday, UFC lightweight Kevin Lee pays close attention to his division, and like everyone else, he was thoroughly entertained by last Saturday’s UFC on FOX 29 main event between Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje. However, unlike most everyone else, Lee says he didn’t see anything ‘championship-level’ out […]

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Heading into his main event bout with Edson Barboza this Saturday, UFC lightweight Kevin Lee pays close attention to his division, and like everyone else, he was thoroughly entertained by last Saturday’s UFC on FOX 29 main event between Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje.

However, unlike most everyone else, Lee says he didn’t see anything ‘championship-level’ out of either man, focusing on Poirier’s post-fight call out of newly-crowned champion Khabib Nurmagomedov (via MMA Fighting):

“I seen it. I know Poirier was calling for a title fight and all this but I don’t know, it just seems like those dudes are in a different category. Can you really look at it and say Poirier’s a championship-level fighter? I just don’t see it. He looked good. He did good versus Gaethje, it was an exciting fight, I think he should go out and look for more exciting fights, but it didn’t really seem like a championship-level fight to me to be honest.”

“Speaking as a fan, what are you really looking for? He’s just going to go out there and get taken down by Khabib, he’s going to fight just like anybody else will fight Khabib or fight some of these top guys. I just don’t see too much from his style except exciting fights. I think him and Eddie (Alvarez), him and Gaethje again, something like that.

“He makes exciting fights, he should go out there and keep doing that, but leave the real fighting and the real championship-level s**t to the other guys.”

Lee, who’s combat base is wrestling, says that Poirier’s striking-based game won’t be enough to keep Nurmagomedov’s take downs at bay.

”The Motown Phenom” will have a chance to get back on track towards the title as he prepares to take on Edson Barboza at this Saturday’s UFC Fight Night in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Lee had come up short against Tony Ferguson for the interim lightweight belt in October.

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Dustin Poirier Shows Off Swollen, Battered Leg After Gaethje Fight

Dustin Poirier dug deep on Saturday night to put away the notoriously tough Justin Gaethje, but didn’t leave the war without some battle wounds. Gaethje punished Poirier’s leg for the first three rounds before leaving Poirier with the perfect opportunity to put his opponent away. The TKO came in the fourth round of their five-round […]

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Dustin Poirier dug deep on Saturday night to put away the notoriously tough Justin Gaethje, but didn’t leave the war without some battle wounds.

Gaethje punished Poirier’s leg for the first three rounds before leaving Poirier with the perfect opportunity to put his opponent away.

The TKO came in the fourth round of their five-round main event,  finishing many fans’ early pick for ‘Fight of the Year’ in 2018.

‘The Diamond’ took to Twitter after the bout to show fans the damage his leg took:

Poirier thanked Gaethje for bringing out the warrior in him in another social media post, something every opponent of his has been forced to do throughout his three fights in the UFC.

Poirier is now knocking on the door of a potential title shot against newly crowned lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, having rattled off a 3-0 (1) since a 2015 defeat at the hands of Michael Johnson.

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Five Biggest Takeaways From UFC on FOX 29

After the madness that was UFC 223 last week, it was refreshing to have a fight card with little drama and big excitement in last night’s (Sat., April 14, 2018) UFC on FOX 29 from the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona. As expected, Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje threw down in 2018’s ‘Fight of […]

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After the madness that was UFC 223 last week, it was refreshing to have a fight card with little drama and big excitement in last night’s (Sat., April 14, 2018) UFC on FOX 29 from the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona.

As expected, Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje threw down in 2018’s ‘Fight of the Year’ frontrunner (watch full highlights here) in the main event, capping off a wholly exciting card overall that featured several exciting knockouts.

Although Matt Brown was scratched from the co-main event, we still got a barnburner in Carlos Condit against Alex ‘Cowboy’ Oliveira, and aside from that, the entire card went off without a hitch.

Saturday proved that sometimes the best cards are the least promoted, and when dust was settled, UFC on FOX 29 delivered. Check out the five biggest takeaways from last night’s card right here.

Brad Tavares
Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

5. Brad Tavares Scores First Finish Since 2011

Brad Tavares has been on the UFC roster for eight years and had only scored one finish in that time.

The Hawaiian was arguably in a must-win situation against Krzysztof Jotko and did so in emphatic fashion. Tavares’ striking looked crisp, eventually scoring his first TKO since defeating Phil Baroni back at UFC 125 in 2011.

Tavares called out former divisional champion Michael Bisping following the fight, and honestly, it’s not a bad matchup for either man. But it’s not one that will do anything for Bisping in his final fight, so don’t expect to see it happen soon.

Tavares is on the up and up, so he should be looking for a fighter in a similar spot in his next bout to see who can rise up even more.

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